Po Yang

Bio and Research Interests

Po Yang is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education and senior research associate at the China Institute for Education Finance Research and Institute of Area Studies at Peking University. Her research focusing on investigating skill formation systems in multiple countries including China, Russia, the United States, Indonesia and Malaysia and on addressing inequalities in finance and labor market outcomes of youth in vocational education and training systems. She also conducts evaluations of excellence initiatives in higher education and vocational education sector. 

Contact Information

Graduate School of Education, 311
Peking University
Yiheyuan Rd No. 5, Beijing, P.R. China, 100871

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Prashant Loyalka 

Bio and Research Interests

Prashant Loyalka is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses on examining/addressing inequalities in the education of children and youth and on understanding/improving the quality of education received by children and youth in multiple countries including China, India, Russia, and the United States. He also conducts large-scale evaluations of educational programs and policies that seek to improve student outcomes. 

Reinhard Pekrun
University Professor and LMU Research Chair
Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU)

Bio and Research Interest

Reinhard Pekrun holds the Chair for Personality and Educational Psychology at the University of Munich. His research areas include achievement emotion and motivation, personality development, and educational assessment. He pioneered research on emotions in education and originated the Control-Value Theory of Achievement Emotions. Pekrun is a highly cited researcher (see most cited authors, Web of Science, Essential Science Indicators) who has authored 21 books and more than 200 articles and chapters, including numerous publications in top journals such as Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Educational Psychology, Child Development, and Emotion. Pekrun is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, of the International Academy of Education, and of the Association for Psychological Science. He is a member of the editorial boards of leading journals such as Journal of Educational Psychology and Contemporary Educational Psychology. He also served as President of the Stress and Anxiety Research Society, Dean of the Faculty for Psychology and Education at the University of Regensburg, and Vice-President for Research at the University of Munich. In an advisory capacity, Pekrun is active in policy development and implementation in education. 

Richard J. Shavelson
Emeritus Professor

Bio and Research Interest

Shavelson is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education (Emeritus), Professor of Psychology (Emeritus), I. James Quillen Dean of the Graduate School of Education (Emeritus) and Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment (Emeritus) at Stanford University. His research spans basic psychometric research to measurement of learning, affect and performance to policy. The work includes accountability in higher education (assessment of undergraduates’ learning and college value added), assessment of science achievement, enhancement of women’s and minorities’ performance in organic chemistry, and the role of mental models of climate change on sustainability decisions and behavior.  Other work includes studies of the impact of computer cognitive training on working memory, fluid intelligence and science achievement.

Roger Säljö
Professor, University of Gothenberg

Bio and Research Interest

Roger Säljö is a professor at the University of Gothenberg (Sweden).  Since 2006 he has served as the Director of the Linnaeus Centre for Research on Learning, Interaction and Mediated Communication in Contemporary Society (LinCS), a national center of excellence funded by the Swedish Research Council. In recent years, he has worked extensively with issues that concern how the so-called new technologies transform human learning practices inside and outside formal schooling. In this field, he has been responsible for the national research program, LearnIT, funded by the Knowledge Foundation.  He is is one of the founding editors of the journal Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. 

Samuel Greiff

Bio and Research Interests

Prof. Dr. Samuel Greiff holds the position of Professor of Educational Monitoring & Effectiveness at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) since October 2024. At TUM, he leads the Centre for International Student Assessment (ZIB) and oversees the national implementation of the PISA study. Before joining TUM, he headed the “Educational Psychology & Artificial Intelligence” research unit at Goethe-University Frankfurt from March to September 2024. He also led the “Cognition, Learning, & Educational Assessment” research group at the University of Luxembourg from 2012 to 2024.

Prof. Greiff's research focuses on systemic educational issues and monitoring through international large-scale comparative studies. His approach to education is holistic, incorporating both individual and societal perspectives. He is particularly interested in leveraging artificial intelligence and process data in educational studies, as well as in embedding 21st-century skills into educational practices. These approaches offer new opportunities to better understand learning processes and learning outcomes.

For many years, Prof. Greiff and his team have contributed to international comparative education studies, such as PISA and PIAAC. Their work offers valuable insights for systemic educational development and informs education policy. Prof. Greiff’s expertise supports evidence-based decision-making for educational reforms that enhance equality of opportunity, as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of education.

In addition, Prof. Greiff has substantial experience in securing third-party funding and frequently publishes in leading journals, including Nature, Computers & Education, and the Journal of Educational Psychology. He is also active as an editor for journals such as Learning and Individual Differences and the Journal of Educational Psychology.

Servaas van der Berg
Professor (National Research Foundation Chair in Social Policy) at Stellenbosch University (South Africa)

Bio and Research Interest

He joined the Department of Economics at University of Stellenbosch in 1982, currently holding the rank of Professor of Economics. He teaches courses in Poverty and Distribution, Development Economics, and Economics of Education.  During his career he has served as a consultant for numerous national and international organizations and agencies, including the World Bank, UNICEF, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Development Bank of Southern Africa, the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), and the Institute for Policy Analysis (AIPA).  He also has worked collaboratively on a number of economic and educational projects.  His most recent project is called “Binding Constraints in Education,” and is a multi-part study financed by the Project to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development, a partnership project between the South African Presidency and the European Union. This multifaceted project is investigating all facets of the school education system to assist in identifying the major constraints to improved learning in schools.  His research interests include economic development, poverty, income distribution, and social policy.

Stella Vosniadou
Strategic Professor 

Bio and Research Interest

Stella Vosniadou is currently a Strategic Professor at Flinders University in South Australia and an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Philosophy and History of Science at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her research interests are in the areas of learning, cognitive development and conceptual change in the learning of science and mathematics. She has more than 150 publications including authored and edited books, articles in refereed journal and edited volumes and over 14,000 citations. She is well known internationally for her research for which she received the 2011 Distinguished International Contributions to Child Development Award by the Society for Research in Child Development.

Steven Rivkin 

Bio and Research Interests

Steven Rivkin is professor and head of the Department of Economics at the University of Illinois Chicago, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and fellow at CES-IFO Research Institute in Germany and the International Academy of Education. He is the author of many studies in the economics and sociology of education including educator effectiveness and labor markets, educator evaluation and compensation reforms in large urban districts, charter schools, school desegregation, accountability, class size reduction, peer influences, the geography of academic mobility and instruction time. His work focuses on the United States, but he has also written on education in Chile and Central Europe. His recent work focuses on educator and school effects on post-secondary outcomes including engagement with the criminal justice system. Rivkin has served on numerous government advisory committees and task forces and was a member of the Amherst and Amherst Regional School Boards. He received his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. from the UCLA Department of Economics.

Sylvia Schmelkes

Bio and Research Interest

Sylvia Schmelkes is a Mexican sociologist and education researcher who currently is serving as the director of the Mexican National Institute of Educational Evaluation (INEE).  She studied sociology at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City and obtained a Master's degree in Education Research by the same institution.  She is best known for her work in intercultural education and her book Toward Better Quality of our Schools. She has written more than 100 academic texts and essays. She is a former General Coordinator of Intercultural and Bilingual Education at the Secretariat of Public Education in Mexico.  In 2008 she received the Comenius Medal from UNESCO for her career as a researcher. Other awards include Ibero-American University’s Tlamatini award in 2003 and the Maria Lavalle Urbina award in 1998.  Her research interests include intercultural bilingual education, values, education and adult learning.